New Year's Eve, family style

Sunday

Dec 30, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Some years ago, when they couldn’t find any baby sitter willing to sacrifice the social night of the year, our daughter Nancy and son-in-law Michael decided to make lemonade out of lemons and host a family party of their own. Parents and siblings on both sides. Assorted kids. One adoring aunt. And two spunky great-grandmothers.

Still new in their rambling old Montclair house, Nancy and Mike set up folding tables in their empty living room, strung around some crepe paper and banners, and shed their usual jeans and T-shirts for dress-up clothes. “Black tie,” they had jokingly decreed that first year. And we surprised our hosts by going along with that decree.

Sure, it felt mighty weird to sit around in formal garb in a house where dressing up usually meant decent pants and a sweater. But the novelty was fun.

Attire aside, it was all so utterly relaxed — and such a far cry from the nightmare New Year’s Eves of my own past, including disasters on ill-fated dates that somehow always turned out wretchedly on the one night of the year when everything was supposed to gleam.

I ended two romances on New Year’s Eves, and spent the subsequent New Year’s Days sobbing my heart out.

Then there were the years of young marriage when the forced gaiety at neighborhood parties made me cringe. All I had was a headache and a desire to get out of my uncomfortable heels and pantyhose.

Soon, my husband and I established a firm policy: we’d stay home on New Year’s Eve, rent a movie and have some champagne at midnight … if we made it to the witching hour without dozing off in the family room.

Until our unexpected New Year’s Eve family tradition …

As Nancy and Mike’s parties got established, they also evolved into the right formula for the assorted guests who sometimes ranged in age from 95 down to 6 months. Talk about a host’s/hostess’ nightmare …

The start time for that first party was 9 p.m., and the dinner prepared by Michael, the family’s amateur executive chef, wasn’t served until just before midnight. It was a banquet, but meanwhile, our assorted grandchildren were tearing through the house creating mayhem, then succumbing to the inevitable meltdown.

So the next year, we altered the format a bit. No formal clothes — but still dress-up. Dinner by 8 p.m. Mike’s mother made a fabulous Yorkshire pudding. His sister brought her famous chocolate chip cookies.

Last year, we got real. Jeans for one and all. Chicken fingers and pizza for the younger hooligans. And nobody has to kick off the tight shoes because most of our feet are shod in sneakers.

This year, the family bash is starting at 6 p.m. Mike has adjusted his plans for fabled menus, taking into account the ages — and foibles — of his guests. It will likely be decaf, not champagne, as the beverage of choice, and the fabulous standing rib roast of years past will be replaced with something lighter. We’ve also conceded that candlelight, alas, makes us squint, so the overhead lights will be on.

There have been more significant changes and renunciations over these New Year’s Eves. Cherished great-grandmothers are gone, and one husband from the original clan is now an “ex.” His palpable absence will ironically be a kind of presence.

Reality shows aside, these changes are truly the stuff of real life as the years tumble by.

Still, it will be lovely to hear the New Year’s Eve toast that seems to automatically fall to one of the elders. It’s a chance to help us all take stock, and to pause, somewhere along the timeline, to give thanks for the blessings of the old year before the new one unfolds.

It will be glorious to look around the makeshift table in Nancy and Mike’s living room and see the faces of those I love on this last evening of 2012. Nobody will have to force the cheer because it will be there, enveloping us.

A New Year’s Eve tradition continues as our flawed, noisy, complicated family welcomes 2013 the best way we know.

Not with party hats. Not with false hysteria. Not with anything much stronger than white wine and Diet Pepsi.

But with something far more important.

Each other.

Sally Friedman is a freelance writer. She can be reached at pinegander@aol.com.

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